Simple Hanging Fall Wreath Chandelier Tutorial

I am still getting our apartment decorated for fall (because it’s still not too late, it’s not December yet!) So today I’m sharing an easy tutorial for making a hanging fall wreath chandelier.

Check this beauty out!

We’re not supposed to hang wreaths or any decorations on the front door of our apartment, but I still wanted a fall wreath. So I made one, turned it on it’s side, and hung it right above my desk!

It’s gorgeous, I love the colors and the candles, and it was fairly simple to make! Also, I’m hoping that, since I used floral wire to hold the leaves etc. on, it will be easy to change out the decorations when I start decorating for winter. :-p

Here’s what you need to make your own:

a grapevine wreath

flowers, leaves, and accessories

votive candles and candle holders

18 gauge wire

floral wire

silicone glue

4 s-hooks

gold chain

ceiling hook

Start with a wreath form as a base

I went to Michaels and found an 18″ grapevine wreath in their floral section. I also found a fall garland and some tiny circular wreaths on sale, perfect! Plus I still had some leaves left over from my fall decor for under $5 project, so I was set.

I’m not going to give detailed instructions as to how I put this wreath together because every wreath can be different (I don’t want to stifle your creative spirit!) But here are the basics.

Adding leaves and accessories

I started by wrapping the fall leaves garland around the outer edges of the wreath. Knowing that this fall wreath chandelier would be suspended above my desk, I tried to make sure that most of the decorations were on the outside/underside of the wreath. No one we know is tall enough to see the very top anyway!

In about five or six places around the wreath, I used floral wire to attach the garland to the wreath. You can also use hot glue, but I went with the wire so that I can take the wreath apart and reuse the grapevine base whenever I start decorating for winter. 🙂

I used the same floral wire to add a few extra leaves, some little autumn beads, and some tiny wreaths to encircle the candle holders.

Attaching the candle holders

The trickiest part of this project is that I wanted candles on my fall wreath chandelier. Candles. With live flames. I had to make sure I could securely attach the candle holders so that the candles wouldn’t tip over or fall out and burn the whole place down. 🙂

I called my dad and his advice was to use silicone glue to attach wire to the glass candle holders. Brilliant! Silicone glue is very strong, but the bond is flexible. If something jostles the wire attached to the glass, it won’t put strain on the glass and possibly crack or shatter it. Yay!

Silicone glue looks a bit like hot glue (clear and thick) but it dries flexible. And hot glue won’t actually work for this because, at least in my experience, it doesn’t stick to glass very well…

I put a thin line of silicone glue around the bottom of the candle holder, and then I wrapped about two feet of the 18 gauge wire around each one. I pulled the wire tight and twisted it to hold it steady; you are supposed to hold the pieces together for at least 5 minutes while the silicone glue starts to dry. It takes 24 hours to fully cure, but after about 10-15 minutes the glue was dry enough to attach the candle holders to the wreath.

Once the glue was dry, I set the candle holders inside the tiny wreaths, wrapped the wires around the underside of the grapevine wreath, and twisted them to secure it.

Everything may look a bit precariously perched on this wreath, but if you picked it up and shook it the only thing that would fall off is a bunch of glitter! (And maybe the candles themselves, since they aren’t glued into the holders…)

Hanging the chandelier

I wanted a really durable and secure way to hang the wreath, so I wrapped more of the 18 gauge wire around the grapevine wreath base a few times in between each of the candle holders.

Then I took some gold chain and cut it into three sections of equal length. I used s-hooks to attach one end of the chains to the sections of wire wrapped around the wreath.

Then I took the other ends of all three chains, put them together on one more s-hook, and hung the whole thing from a ceiling hook above my desk. Done!

What do you think? Have you ever turned a wreath sideways? I really love the way it looks, and now I have decorations on this side of the room as well!

This picture from Martha Stewart was my inspiration for this project. I didn’t make tiny pumpkins into candle holders, but I love my version just as much!

Hi, I'm Jessi! Welcome to Practically Functional, a DIY and crafts blog for everyone! I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience.
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Comments

That is crazy! I really want to make an Advent wreath, but I planned to put it out on a table–you’re brave to hang the candles! I never thought of doing something similar (sideways wreath with candles) just to be decorative for fall, but it’s so pretty. At the very least, you’ve given me confidence that I could probably make the Advent wreath. ^_^

Yeah, brave, or stupid. I tried to make sure to hang it high enough that the cats won’t be interested in it. The wire and glue is definitely strong enough to hold the candles on by themselves, but probably not if a cat jumped up there… 🙂 And you can definitely make an Advent wreath!

Some cat people friends of ours hang their Christmas tree from the ceiling; they use a series of wreaths. But they don’t usually put much other than lights on them since the cats still jump up and climb all over them. At least they’re not knocking a tree over when they do it, though. They had a good picture one year of the cats perched on the wreaths, swaying back and forth. ^_^

Love your wreath chandelier! I’d like to invite you to share it at my party, Twirl & Take a Bow at http://www.houseontheway.com. Found you at the CHQ blog hop. I’m your newest follower on twitter.
Leslie

I just love this and it is WAY more budget-friendly than similar items for sale would be! I shared this and one of your other projects on my Some Kind of Wonderful Saturday Party! I hope you stop by and share more of your projects. They are just amazing! I know I will definitely be back. Not only do I love your projects, but they actually fit in my tiny craft budget!